To ask if anyone has done flu camp

[Bellavida99]

DS18 and his friends are keen. You get over £4000 for a 2 week stay. Has anyone done it and how poorly are you? They make it sound very easy for people who are happy indoors on the internet

Isn't the intention that they are testing vaccinations and remedies for flu - ahead of releasing these to the wider population? And that they are managing this under clinical conditions including giving low doses, and screening volunteers for vulnerabilities before hand?

Flu can be dangerous and being a Guinea pig is not without risk, but if nobody volunteered for these trials then we wouldn't have such effective vaccinations and treatments.

COVID is a virus similar to flu. Would they be so keen if it was COVID?

It wasn't a similar trial at all, but yes, of course there is a risk to any trial.
There are much lower risk ones than flu camp though, if they are looking for easy money. Many of the early clinical trials are looking at very low doses with very low risk. The one mentioned was an immunological drug that caused a cytokine storm (I think, from memory).
https://www.londontrials.com/trials
These people do a lot of early phase trials. Also Parexel at Northwich Park (where the disaster happened!).

The flu camp people were doing COVID challenge trials for a while. Not sure if they still are.

How do people think new drugs & vaccines are developed?

My friend did it. He was really poorly but also didn't regret doing it.

My only real concern would be that you could trigger post viral syndrome which can easily turn into ME/CFS and ruin your life.

That said it's a lot of money and if I wasn't already chronically sick I would consider it.

And when I say really poorly what I mean is for the first week he wasn't on the internet he was laying in a hospital bed unable to do much at all. The following week he seemed better.

As pps, if you have ever had proper flu, you would avoid. Had it twice, once in 1988 I think when there was an epidemic. It was terrible. I was young and fit and took months to recover. Second time I was in my 30s. I have had the vaccine every year since.

always said I'd rather have covid than flu anyday.

If you have any history if autoimmune disease in your family (thyroid, coeliac, T1 Diabetes, Reynauds, Lupus, MS etc) then I would avoid it like the plague. My son's T1 diabetes was triggered by a nasty bout of flu and viruses are a common trigger for autoimmune disease. He wasn't even that ill - I had it too and neither of us were at deaths door but it was enough to trigger his autoimmunity.

No wonder they are paying so much.

They wouldn't be allowed to take part if they had underlying conditions. The criteria are very tight.
They are not allowed to pay for the risk, only compensation for inconvenience.

Most of us have flu every few years, we just sneeze a bit or have a headache, or even are asymptomatic. That's how it spreads.

Sometimes, for a lot of people that's a few times in a lifetime, we get really ill with it. These trials might help save lives - the elderly and the very young are most vulnerable and your son is in neither category.

I'd be more concerned about the drugs they are using in the trial than the flu part of it, personally. I don't know much about that side of it or if they tell you about them beforehand.

@Universalsnail I believe it was flu that triggered my fibromyalgia. I was pregnant at the time and DC has developed fm at age 40. I thinkI was vulnerable anyway but there is no saying who is. I salute those brave souls who do volunteer as they potentially contribute to the development of life saving vaccines but I wouldn’t encourage anyone to do it.

I don't know much about that side of it or if they tell you about them beforehand.
There's a 12-15 page document to read, a discussion with a doctor beforehand & the opportunity to ask as many questions as you like. It's called informed consent & must be written in layman's language. Consent can be withdrawn at any time.
These trials are incredibly controlled, even more so since the problem one at Northwick Park

Where would we be without people volunteering to do this stuff though?

He's getting paid, they'll ensure he's healthy enough and that he understands the risks.

It doesn't really matter what other people's experiences are.

There is a risk that he could become very unwell, so he/ you need to decide if that's a risk he's happy to take. He might be fine, he might not - you won't know until he does it. That's why they pay a good amount for people to take the risk.

This! If he’s fit and healthy and passes all the screening it’s a great service he’s offering science and all the vulnerable people that will benefit from the research. As long as he’s clear on the risks and happy I’d let him.

My flu dose gave me pneumonia and pleurisy in my 20s. I really wouldn’t choose to be infected with flu. Unfortunately it’s unknown who will get very ill and who will be fine. It’s a bit of a risk.

Hi @Cookerhood
I assume your post was for me as it was straight after. The whole thing about autoimmune disease is that before you are diagnosed it isn't an underlying condition, it is a genetic predisposition to develop autoimmunity which you might not know you have until you get it. Eg in my family nearly all women on one side have an autoimmune disease going back generations apart from 2 living females. I am one of those 2, but I clearly carry the genes because my children have developed autoimmunity.

Possibly I just haven't met my autoimmune trigger yet 😳

@BloodyHellKen they would also ask about family history, do all sorts of blood tests etc etc. But, yes, of course there are risks and it's up to individuals to decide whether to take those risks.
I've been involved with hundreds of these studies and problems are vanishingly rare, but they do happen.

One of DD's friends did this last month. She was between jobs, 25 and healthy, was paid £3k for a week. She wasn't particularly unwell but was very bored.

I wouldn't bother. It's a lot of hassle with complicated screening requirements.

I had flu last October, and honestly, it sucked. It was much, much worse than Covid.

You're right but the problem is for decades presenteeism at workplaces has minimised it as "just flu" as if it's a basic cold when it's always been a very deadly illness that we can't do a lot to alleviate once someone has it.
Maybe if we had more respect for flu we'd realise flu and covid are basically both as serious as each other and that doesn't minimise covid at all it just means we're seeing both as the nasty illnesses with real risks to life that they can be for specific demographics.

No that's a cold. Proper influenza is very distinctive and much more rare than a nasty cold.

Agreed - so many workplaces, when you go off sick, have "cold/flu" as an option, as if they're the same!